INTRODUCTION:You are required to read and understand the terms and conditions of this Terms of Service Agreement BEFORE you become an active member of Creative-Poems.com. Your creation of an account with us constitues your acknowledgment and agreement that you have read and agreed to all terms herein.

Creative-Poems.com is intended to be a place for amateur and aspiring poets to post and display their own work. Our primary goal is to encourage people to write and exhibit their own creativity. Consequently, our site strictly forbids plagiarism. You may not reproduce the work of others.

The poetry featured on this site is for everyone's enjoyment and entertainment. To participate, you are expected to be respectful of the rights of other users.

The site provides a mechanism for obtaining feedback for your work as well as a variety of features, such as a Forum, for instructive commentary by other members of the site and updates on site issues.

Creative-Poems.com and any services provided to you on and through this web site are provided on an AS IS basis. This Terms of Service Agreement may change at any time without notice.

Creative-Poems.com is operated and maintained by means of subscriptions and donations. Any and all support is greatly appreciated.

Members are defined to include donors, paid subscribers, and non-paying members. All are equally bound by this agreement.

Third-party advertisers are not admissible as members.

POLICY AND USERS AGREEMENT:To be a member of Creative-Poems.com, you must be thirteen (13) years of age or older. No exceptions are permitted.

By becoming a member, you agree to the following stipulations. For each and every time you use or cause access to Creative-Poems. Com, you agree to be bound by these Terms Of Service. In addition, should you be using a particular service on or through this site, you will be subject to any rules, regulations, or guidelines applicable to those services and they shall be incorporated by reference into these Terms Of Service. Any member not adhering to Creative-Poems.com rules and guidelines are subject to having their email address blocked by the Administration and being permanently banned from this site.

You agree that the Administration of Creative-Poems.com exclusively reserves the right and may, at any time, with or without notice and any liability to you, modify or discontinue this web site and its services, delete the data you provide, whether temporarily or permanently. Creative-Poems.com shall bear no responsibility or liability for the timeliness, deletion, failure to store, inaccuracy, or improper delivery of any data or information.

You agree that any and all information or data of any kind (text, software, code, music or sound, photographs or graphics, video or other materials), publicly or privately provided, shall be the sole responsibility of the person providing the content and/or material, or the person whose user ID is used.

Similarly, you are personally responsible for all data of any kind (text, software, code, music or sound, photographs or graphics, video or other materials) which you provide.

You agree to follow and obey all local rules defining acceptable content and agree to comply with all applicable import/export laws, regulations, and exclusion lists.

You agree that Creative-Poems.com may expose you to content that may be objectionable and/or offensive. Creative-Poems.com shall not be responsible to you in any way, shape, or form for the content that appears on this web site, nor for any error or omission.

You agree to indemnify and hold without harm all officers, staff, and employees of Creative-Poems.com from any charge, claim, legal fees, or action taken by other parties resulting from any content or activities that arise from your use or misuse of our services, any violation of our TOS that you commit, or any abuse or violation of rights of other members or parties that results from your conduct.

You expressly comprehend and agree that Creative-Poems.com shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, consequential or exemplary damages, including but not limited to, damages for loss of profits, goodwill, use, data or other intangible loss (even if Creative-Poems.com has been advised of the possibility of such damages), resulting from or arising out of:
1) The use of or inability to use the service,
2) The cost to obtain substitute goods and/or services resulting from any transaction entered into on through the service,
3) Unauthorized access to, or alteration of your data transmissions,
4) Statements or conduct of any third party on the service, or
5) Any other matter relating to the service.

Please be aware that Creative-Poems.com has created certain areas on the website that contain adult or mature content. You must be at least 18 years of age to access and view such areas.

AGE VERIFICATION:All members must submit and update their true and correct age with birth date. Members will have the option of keeping this information private from other members. Any member found to be providing false or inaccurate age and birth date information will be immediately removed and banned from the site, and all submitted poems will be deleted permanently without notice.

CONTENT AND/OR LANGUAGECreative-Poems.com reserves the right to amend or deny submission of any poetry at any time.
The content and/or language of poetry submitted will be under the review of the Moderators working on behalf of Creative-Poems.com. All writes containing profane or violent language must be entered only in the Explicit category provided. You must be 18 or older, and a Premium member to enter writes containing sexually explicit material, and this must be placed in the Adult category. (See following sections for additional terms and definitions). Any material deemed explicit by the Moderators or Administration that is wrongly classified will be moved with or without notice and redirected to the appropriate classification.

Creative-Poems.com maintains these provisions as a protection for our underage members.

Should a member attempt to over-ride the poem placement provided by the Moderators, that poem will be removed from the site. Such a user may face suspension. Members are urged instead to use the Dispute mechanism to contest actions they do not agree with.

English is the official language used at Creative-Poems.com. If you submit material in another language, you must post a translation for it, line for line. Poems, comments, or Forum posts made in other languages without accurate, line-by-line translation to English will be promptly removed, without notice.

All communication with site personnel must be made using the English language.

This policy may be revised in the future if bilingual Moderators become available.

USER CONDUCT:You explicitly agree, while using Creative-Poems.com or any service provided, that you shall not:
1) Provide any content and/or material or perform any conduct or act that may be unlawful, illegal, threatening, harmful, abusive, harassing, stalking, tortuous, defamatory, libelous, vulgar, obscene, offensive, objectionable, pornographic, intentionally disparages or isolates another member, designed to or which does interfere or interrupt this web site or any service provided, infect with a virus or other destructive or deleterious programming routine, give rise to civil or criminal liability, or which may violate any and all applicable laws;
2) Impersonate or misrepresent your association with any person or entity, or forge or otherwise seek to conceal or misrepresent the origin of any content provided by you;
3) Disclose security credentials (username, passwords, or security words) to anyone.
4) Operate or control any user account other than your own;
5) Collect or harvest any information about other users and/or members;
6) Provide or use Creative-Poems.com and any content or service in any commercial manner or in any manner that would involve junk mail, spam, chain letters, pyramid schemes, or any other form of unauthorized advertising without our prior written consent;
7) Provide any content and/or material that may give rise to civil or criminal liability or which may constitute or be considered a violation of any state, federal or international law, including but not limited to laws relating to copyright, trademark, patent, or trade secrets.;
8) The site may investigate IP addresses and compare it against lists of known spammers. Site access may be automatically denied should your IP coincide with values found one of these lists. You may email our site for relief should this affect you without cause.

MEMBER REGISTRATION:All individuals wishing to become a member of Creative-Poems.com must complete a registration process in order to submit their work or to be able to comment on the poems featured. You must complete certain fields of the sign-up form in order for your application to be processed.

In particular, your accurate and true birthdate must be provided on the registration form. Any member found to be providing false information will have their accounts permanently deleted and banned.

All persons aged 17 and under must obtain the consent of a parent or guardian before completing a registration sign up form. Any person under the age of 17 found to have an account without parental consent may be found in violation of federal law. Parents will be held responsible for all minors 17 and under.

You are not encouraged to provide location information. If, however, you choose to provide false location information, your account may be deleted.

Only one account is allowed per person. All accounts added after the first will be removed from the system without notice. Anything related to those accounts will be erased. The primary account may be suspended.

If you cannot access your account for any reason, that is NOT cause to make another account. Instead, you must notify site Adminstration about this difficulty using the Contact Form.

PRIVACY:Information of a personal nature entered onto this site shall be kept in the strictly confidential. Information from this site collected by the Administration or members may not be released to individuals or businesses at any time except as required by law-enforcement officials. This information includes the list of members, all poetry submitted, comments made on other member's poems, personal messages, IP addresses, logs, or any additional site information which may be gathered as part of routine site operation.

The site employs geolocation technology. For the protection of our members, a flag representing the member's country of residence will be computed and publically displayed in various locations, including the member's profile page. Other, more precise user location information will not be collected.

As mentioned above, member birthdates and email addresses must be accurately entered upon registration. User ages, however, are not automatically displayed following registration and are by default set to "non-public" for member protection. Similarly, the email address you used for registration is not publically disclosed by us.

It is the complete responsibility of each member to minimize their personal disclosures in order to minimize the posibility of identity theft and reactions to this information by the public.

You are NOT encouraged to provide email addresses publically, for example, in your profile settings. These may be picked up by spammers who may pummel these addresses with malicious emails.

Premium subscribers of this website do have additional privacy options which allow them to hide their poems, their on-line presence, and even their profiles from all who are not active community members.

COOKIES:You acknowledge that Creative-Poems.com requires the storage of cookies on any computer you utilize for login. Further, you agree to allow Creative-Poems.com to store these cookies. Cookies are used permit access to our site following your login and to store the state of certain menus for your convenience and to enhance your experience. Creative-Poems.com uses cookies only for your convenience and will not use cookies for any other purpose.

Further, you acknowledge these cookies remain on any computer you use, unless you log out of your account on Creative-Poems.com. They are deleted when you log out. On computers in public places, this may present a security risk to your account. Even if you log out, the cookies could be located and restored. For this reason, you understand you should not log into your Creative-Poems.com account on publically accessible equipment.

THIRD PARTY SERVICES:Goods and services of third parties may be advertised and/or made available on or through the Creative-Poems.com website. Representations made regarding products and services provided by third parties are governed by the policies and representations made by these third parties. Creative-Poems.com does not warranty any third party services and not be liable or responsible in any way for any of dealings or interaction you may have with other parties.

SUBSCRIPTION:Subscriptions may be purchased using site tools or by mail, following successful registration. Subscription begins immediately after funds are received and expire automatically, on the same day of the month, following the subscription period unless renewed. If PayPal was used in the subscription process, funds will be automatically transferred by PayPal to renew the subscription, until cancelled by the user. You agree to this automatic transfer of funds on a monthly or yearly basis when you complete a PayPal subscription.

Subscription cancellation via PayPal is also an automated process and this is separate and apart from our site's Cancel Account function which instead deletes all traces of your account on our server. It is not our responsibility to cancel your PayPal subscription for you should you use our site's Cancel Account function.

Upon cancellation of your subscription using the PayPal tool, the user's membership will automatically be depreciated, for example, from Premium to Free, at the end of the paid subscription period.

Refunds will be provided for unused service, should cancellation occur before the end of the subscription period, however, no refunds for a partial month's service (less than $5.00) will be provided. For example, if you cancel your monthly subscription after only a few days of service, no refund will be provided for the current month. Every effort will be made to provide an appropriate refund for more than 1 month's service for members in good standing, having paid subscriptions, should they cancel their subscription or should something unforseen happen to our service. In the unlikely event of a site closure, all subscriptions will be cancelled by us, and refunds provided as discussed above.

Suspension or dismissal is not grounds for a refund of your subscription. In the event your account becomes either suspended or removed because of a violation of this Terms of Service agreement, all rights to any refund are forfeited.

Subscriptions provide no gurantee of service. Rates of subscription are guranteed for the current paid subscription period (month or year) only. Features, specific conditions, and terms may change at any time without notice.

WRITING GROUPS"Writing groups" are uniquely named entities consisting of a designated group leader and at least one additional member for the purposes of creating, editing, maintaining, and displaying works resulting from collaboration of group members.
There are several type of Writing Groups, including Invitation Only and Ad Hoc Groups.
For all group types, the group leader manages the groups's profile and invites other members to join the group. The group leader is responsible for contributing signficantly to each write as well as publishing the group write. For the Invite Only group type, writes cannot be published until all members have voted in agreement. For the Ad Hoc group type, users may use the "Click 'n Join" feature to join the group and immediately publish their contribution. Ad Hoc groups are intended to be used only once.
Each group member is responsible to make a contribution by sequentially editing a draft, viewing progress of the joint work, and placing a vote when they find it acceptable for publication. Each member accepting a group's invitation agrees to participate in the creative process, and to equal shares in the ownership of any and all resulting writes by that group. Leaders may also submit group poems to site contests and place them in the Display list.
Once published, group writes will be eligible to receive comments from all non-group members and will appear in the profiles of each group member as well as the shared, group profile. To facilitate feedback, all members of the group receive notification when comments are received and are encouaged to reply to the commentors. Once published, consent of a majority of group members is required for removal of a group write.
All group members must be in good standing in order to participate in writing groups. Groups containing members under age 18 may not submit works to the Adult categories. Shared rights to drafts may be lost should group or member status change prior to publication. Group profiles as well as group writes are subject to all the same TOS requirements as individual writes.

OFFENSIVE COMMENT, POEM, PM, AND FORUM REPORT:Any offensive material contained within poems, comments, personal messages, and forum posts are to be reported by members using the tools within the viewing utilities provided by this site. These are provided specifically for this reason.

Offensive materials are not characterized as opinions or ideas you may not agree with. Rather, these items become offensive when they violate the principles specified in the "User Conduct" section or elsewhere within this Agreement.

For example, if someone makes a threat, repeatedly makes inappropriate remarks, or disparages or isolates another member, these should be reported to the Administration using the appropriate Offensive report tool.

If you do not report such behavior, you cannot expect it to be noticed by the Administration or our Moderators. There will be no negative consequences to you for filing such reports, however, you are expected to include a specific violation from among those listed in this Agreement and accurately describe the offensive behavior. Do not file frivolous or unsupported Offensive reports.

Further, all members of our staff, both our Moderators and Administrators, will be held to the same standards of conduct as described herein. The Offensive Report tools should be used to report specific staff behavior which is not in line with this TOS agreement.

All Offensive reports will be reviewed promptly by members of the Administration. A log of all reports and Administrative actions is maintained which is reviewed by the site owner. This log includes the specific reason or reasons the Administration took action.

When action is taken, personal messages or email is sent to the person whose poem, comment, personal message, or forum post was affected. This message will include a dispute resolution option, to be exercised if the affected user does not agree with the action taken. Specific reasons should be provided. It is possible for the action to be overturned following review.

POEM COMMENTING:Once a comment is posted, it can not be edited. If a comment contains profanity or insults, or otherwise constitute a Terms of Service violation, the comment is subject to removal and the Commentor may be subject to suspension. Creative-Poems.com reserves the right to approve or deny comment removal requests made by members, and to remove comments at any time with or without notice or explanation. The Offensive Comment Report tool is available for users to report comments which do not comply with the TOS agreement.

Remember, this is a poetry website whose members aspire to improve writing skills. The comment section is provided to applaud and instruct the author from other viewpoints.

Commentors are expected to provide the level of feedback indicated by the author's their Comment Preference selection. Authors are instructed not to request Detailed Critique unless they are ready for it.

Regardless, all comments made must be in good taste, constructive, and non-abrasive in nature. Commentors who disagree with a writer's point of view are required to express themselves respectfully.

Discussion is prohibited within poem pages. As is mentioned above, discussion may only reside within the Forum.

DISPUTE RESOLUTION:Members are encouraged to dispute any and all actions by Moderators or the Administration using the Dispute software tools provided.

Typically, such a dispute may arise because of the removal of a poem or comment by our staff or a more complex issue may arise. This Terms of Service agreement must form the basis for any and all of your complaints.

All disputes reported will be considered promptly by the Administration team. A permanent log of all such disputes, as well as all Offensive reports, is maintained and all are reviewed by the Site Owner.

SUBMITTING AND POSTING YOUR WRITES:Your submission must:
1) Be a poem, short story, lyric, etc.
2) Be your original creation - not simple replication of previously existing work.
3) Contain proper references to specific photographers or artisans when any included articles (pictures, snippets, music, etc.) are used.
4) Be suitable for the intended audience.
5) Not contain threats or harm to another individual's life.
6) Not interfere with the operation of the site.
7) Be posted with an understanding that the site reserves final control over display of the submission.

The poem section is strictly for posting your poems. If you would like to discuss something, or have a topic that you would like to converse on then you must use the Forum. Any and all material not considered in poetic form or nature that is submitted to the poem section will be removed with or without notice.

Creative-Poems does not permit simple reproductions of other's work (poems, lyrics, quotes, etc.) found elsewhere. If you include a small portion of someone's work to support your own creative thought or idea, then you may post it assuming you include proper reference to the original title and author (not a link) and other copyright considerations are resolved.

You must accurately credit all sources of material not created by you. This is required for use of pictures, music, and other digital articles which appear on our site through the use of external links. In such cases you must, at a minimum:

1) Clearly identify the name (screen names are not allowed) of the photographer, artist, lyricist, or other artisan who originally created any such items. (If the item was created by you, you must either use your screen name or real name so we know it's yours.)

2) You must also comply with any and all requirements related to your specific use of that digital item within the context of our public and commercial website, if any. Remember, this context may differ from your private use on your own, personal website site. Be sure you understand and comply with the source sites's terms of service.

If you are posting a link that involves a performance, including such as a MIDI, audio, or video you must name the author or writer, the title of the melody, song, or video, and the performer if different from the author, and the copyright owner should that differ from the author.

The only exceptions to these rules are granted for material in our SIGS. Posting links or the name of an off-site SIG is insufficient, as that is already obvious with a right click.

The individual who originally created the work or item must be properly cited or it will be considered plagiarism by our staff. If all the appropriate information cannot be identified, links to the item may not be used on our site.
Administration will regularly perform spot checks of references. Repeated posting of work with missing, misleading, or incorrect references will result in suspension of your account. Excellent tools exist for researching the origin of web content today (e.g., www.TinEye.com for of images and photographs). The rule is simple: If you cannot identify the photographer, artist, you may not include the image in your post.
Note this is different from the policy of many other sites. On Creative-Poems.com, you are expected to properly credit the sources of all material not created by you.

Irregardless, you are hereby notified that if you post the work of others, you bear full and complete responsibility for any potential liabilities relating to the unauthorized reproduction of material copyrighted by others. You are expected to research and comply with their requrements.

It is strongly urged that common sense and a modicum of decency be considered when choosing the subject your poetry is based on. You must remember to keep our young readers and authors in mind and act accordingly.

Before hitting the "Publish" button, briefly consider the impact of your write on our members and users. We provide you the freedom to write, however, as a member you assume full responsibility for what you write. Our members have responsibility for their comments but have recourse should they consider your write personally offensive. All are bound by this document.

Any poems containing contents of violent nature, such as threats to another's life or threats to cause bodily harm to a named another may be deemed illegal and punishable by law. These poems will be deleted immediately without further notice.

Graphics and signatures are allowed to be used with poems as stated above. However, the Administration reserves the right to remove any graphic or signature that is found to interfere with sites home page with or without notification.

By submitting and posting any content or material to Creative-Poems.com:
1) You comprehend and agree that we shall have the right, but not obligation, at our sole discretion, to refuse to publish or to remove or block access to any content or material you provide at any time and for any reason, with or without notice.
2) You agree to grant us permission to display your work on Creative-Poems.com.

LINKS AND URLS:The following requirements goven the use of these items:

1) Premium subscribers are permitted to use external website links and URLís as appropriate in various locations around the site.

2) When you post links and URL's, it is your responsibility to comply with the following requrements as well as the stated requirements of the any remote web site.

3) Posting of links or URL's to explicit or sexually offensive, pornographic, profane, violent, illegal, and/or malicious content (e.g., viruses) will constitue grounds for removal of your account. Members placing such links or URL's assume full liability, including any and all damages such as harm resulting from the operation of malicious code or viruses.

4) Links and URL's are intended to be used creatively to reinforce ideas advanced within your text or for reference purposes and must be appropriate to their associated content.

5) Links and URL's within Adult categories must meet requirements stated in 3) above. No sexually explicit links can be used simply because the category is an adult one.

6) The Poems, Author's Note's, and Forum sections may only contain references consistent with the conditions above.

7) Please note that URL's are NOT to be used as the sole (only) reference for any digital articles or text you use. Instead, as is clearly stated in the "Posting Poems" section above, you MUST explicitly identify who created any digital article you add. A link or URL as part of such a reference is only appropriate if required by the creator/owner of the digital article. If you cannot identify the article's creator or owner, you may NOT include the article (picture, midi, etc.) in work here. Specifically, anonymous collections are NOT to be used as sources unless the authors name is discernable.

8) Poem Comments are not to contain links or URL's.

9) Links or URLS's not meeting these requirements or found to be broken will cause the piece to be removed from view (sent to draft or deleted).

10) All members are reminded not to blindly click on untrusted links or URL's posted on this or any site. Creative-Poems accepts no liability for damages inflicted by malware such as worms and viruses. Creative-Poems.com does not extend or imply a trust relationship to any external links or URLS and neither approves of, endorses, or gurantees any information, opinions, or products found on external links and URL's.

AUDIO NARRATIONPremium members may associate a audio file containing a narration with any of their poems. These files are uploaded and attached to a poem using the WYSIWYG editor. Their presence is indicated by a blue speaker icon in poems and poem lists. They are not to be confused with linked music which may separately be added using the editor.

Audio narration files are uploads and are subject to specific limitations of authorship, content, and filesize. These files must be original creations by the member and may not be reproductions or copies of copyrighted intellectual property produced by anyone other than the member. The content of the audio file must directly relate to the subject of the poem. Additionally, they must be suitable for the chosen category of the poem. A maximum filesize cannot be exceeded (5 MB). Posting audio files not meeting these requirements may lead to suspension of your account without notice.

COPYRIGHTS:All members are asked to copyright their poetry, either formally or informally. The US Copyright office will protect your material and all rights associated with your poems. Various on-line services are available elsewhere for use should you seek formal copyright. Creative-Poems.com bears no responsibility for any advice, fees and satisfaction you may or may not receive from such services. You also have copyright protection informally by agreeing that all poetry is of original origin. All poetry submitted remains the property of the author and its use both, in part or whole retains all copyright privileges. All submissions will be displayed as submitted, if possible.

POEM LIMITS:Premium members are allowed to post eight (8) poems in any 24-hour time period. Free members are allowed one (1) poem in any 24-hour time period. (Revised 5/20/11.) Generally, that means the previous 24 hours from the current time and not from midnight, your time.

Specifically, when you attempt to publish a new write or existing draft, site software will count the number of writes you submitted in the previous 24 hours, and deny immediate publication if the limit has already been submitted.

So that you do not loose your work, you will be offered the opportunity to save up to five (5) drafts in any 24 hour period. These can be published later at time when you are within limits.

This limit is to provide our Moderators with sufficient time to inspect new writes from all members and not be loaded down by a few members. It is imperative that all members adhere to this limit!

BACKUP OF MEMBER SUBMISSIONS:All members should create a copy of their poems before submitting them, as Creative-Poems.com is not responsible for the loss of any poems.

EXPLICIT CATEGORY:Poems that may be offensive, vulgar, violent, or contain the intense use of profanity must be placed within this category. This includes any use of profanity in poem Titles.

This is the singular category where explict language is allowed to exist in poem titles. For this reason, such titles will never be found on the Home page. Poem lists will contain poems from this category only when the user allows it.

Any poems containing contents of violent nature, such as threats to another's life or threats to cause bodily harm to a named another may be deemed illegal and punishable by law. These poems will be deleted immediately with or without further notice.

Note that all sexually explicit material must be placed in the Adult section, as outlined below.

ADULT CATEGORIES:Any and all sexually explicit poems must be placed in the Adult category. A number of sub-categories are provided for your convenience.

Explicit words are not allowed in the titles of poems in the Adult categories or anywhere else except the Explicit category. Any poems with explicit words in their titles will be removed without exception. This is required to prevent explicit words from showing in the Home page and/or in poem lists without user approval.

You must be a Premium subscriber to post or view poems in this category. Members under the age of 18 are strictly prohibited from posting and viewing within this category. Age verification will be required before entering and posting these types of poems. Any member that provides false or inaccurate age and birth date information will be immediately removed and banned from this site, and all submitted poems will be deleted permanently without notice.

SOLICITATION:Absolutely no soliciting is allowed on Creative-Poems.com! Anything that is considered soliciting will be removed without notice.

TOPIC OF THE WEEK:Any poems deemed to be the current topic of the week may be relocated to that category.

LINK EXCHANGE:contains links to other Internet sites. These links are provided solely as a convenience to you and are not endorsements of any products or services in such sites, and no information in such site has been endorsed or approved by Creative-Poems.com. These third party sites may also contain opinions and viewpoints of third parties that do not necessarily coincide with our opinions and viewpoints. Those sites may also have privacy policies different than our own privacy policy.

FEATURED POEMS:By submitting your poem to the Featured Poems List, your poem will be viewed and rated by anonymous teams composed of members of Creative-Poems.com. These are volunteers, selected by the administration.

Creative Poems Awards are based on creativity, originality, meaning, spelling, punctuation and on the format. Only one poem is allowed to be added per week. Ten poems per week will receive the "Creative Poems Award Ribbon", which will show up next to their poem.
All poems submitted must NOT contain the author's name. Any submitted with the author's name appearing will automatically be disqualified.

INACTIVE ACCOUNTS:Posting poems in not a requirement for membership. However, accounts must be used to remain active. All accounts that are inactive for 30 days and do not contain a poem may be removed. All accounts that are inactive for 90 days and contain a poem or poems are subject to removal.

PRIVATE MESSAGING (PM):Creative-Poems.com has an on-site messaging service. This is provided for poets to talk between themselves and receive feedback on comments made or given. Messages should be in good taste, non-abrasive and non-insulting. All obscene and sexually explicit content and/or material are prohibited.
It is forbidden for PM's of other members to be circulated or posted in poems without the express permission of their author. For example, it is a TOS violation to post someone's PM or Comment in your Comment area without their permission. In no case shall PM's from this site be removed to other services.
Creative-Poems.com prohibits all SPAM from being distributed through the PM service. Chain letters are forbidden. Violators may be suspended or removed without notice.
A provision is available for each poet to report offensive messages. It is available in the PM service. It is the responsibility of the offended member to report such messages to the Administration immediately using the tool provided.
Please note that PMís may be viewed periodically by the Administration for the purpose of maintaining the integrity of this website.

CHAT ROOM:Creative-Poems.com has the unique feature of including a free on-site chat room. This is a wonderful tool for communicating with the other authors and readers of our site.
We strictly enforce behavior and language in this chat room. Breeches of this discipline are subject to expulsion from the Creative-Poems.com website.
Moderators will police the site and report to the Administration on all incidents of misbehavior and misuse.
Because young authors and readers use this provision, the chat room must be a pleasant and courteous place to chat. The Administration reserves the right to ban anyone from this site at any time for misuse, misbehavior or not adhering to the guidelines and policies of this site.

WRITING GROUPS:All writing groups must contain a leader and more than one member. The group leader maintains the Group Profile and images. Group poems are to be written as a group. If a poem is written by one person in the group the poem posted will be removed. Each poem should have a signature of all members that helped write the poem, which was posted. All members should be given credit for the poem posted.
You may not exceed three poem posts per day as a group. All poems over that limit will be removed.

FORUM:The Forum is your place to discuss issues, post questions, opinions, and replies to other Forum posts. All discussion is required to be of good taste. Profanity and abusive comments will result in removal of the same. The Forum is policed by the Moderators to ensure topics and comments are free of profanity and abrasive content.

MEMBER PROFILE:User profiles are designed to be viewed by our members as well as our guests, the general public.

Consequently, all Usernames, Real Names, poem Titles (excepting Explicit category poems), and any information contained on your profile page must be in good taste. Language and/or images which are explicit, profane, pornographic, and/or sexually suggestive or explicit are NOT ALLOWED in user profiles. Information, including the entire profile, will be removed with or without notice if deemed explicit or inappropriate by the Administration.

Additionally, users maintain responsibility for all information and items posted within their profile. See accompanying TOS rules (under Posting Poems) regarding the use of any items and linked material not created by you.

Non-compliance with these conditions is grounds for disciplinary action.

PROFILE PICTURE:Creative-Poems.com gives each author the choice to post his/her picture to his or her profile. This image, or a thumbnail representation of them, will be uploaded and used in various locations on the website as an avatar representing that member.

By submitting this image you give us permission to electronically publish and distribute the image. You remain fully responsible for this image.

All images are required to be non-violent in nature, in good taste, and suitable for all age groups. Pornography, nudity and partial nudity are strictly forbidden! Sexually suggestive material of any type is forbidden.

All pictures will be reviewed and accepted by the Administration before they will be posted to your profile.

Your profile picture is expected to be a personal photograph owned by you. You may NOT upload photographs or graphics created or owned by others without:

1) The creator or copyright owner's (identifying) information or marks clearly visible within the photograph.

2) Further, you will be challenged by Administration to produce the written, expressed permission of the actual photographer, creator, or copyright owner for us to publish their work on this, privately owned website.

These images may be removed at any time without notification.

PERSONAL PICTURES:An additional number of personal pictures may be uploaded by Premium subscribers. The guidelines for Profile Pictures (above) also apply to these images. Personal pictures will be periodically reviewed by the Administration and, if out of compliance, may be removed at any time without notice.

WRITING CONTESTS:We sponsor the Featured Poetry Contest and also perodically offer Special Poetry Contests in which all members can also participate. A judging panel is selected from among volunteers to evaluate poetry submitted to these contests.

All are encouraged to enter the contests either as authors or volunteer poetry raters. The future is a boundless region at Creative-Poems.com and we welcome you to be a part of it!

REGULATION:Respect for the rules on Creative-Poems.com will be maintained through regulation. All authors must adhere to the requirements and specifications listed herein. In the event of disregard for the rules governing Creative-Poems.com the Administration of the site may issue the offender a warning. In such a case if a second offense occurs it will result in suspension and/or will warrant removal of the offender from the site. Some offenses may result in immediate suspension without warning.

COPPA Childrenís Online Privacy Protection Act:The Federal Trade Commissionís Online Privacy Act of 1998 (COPPA) is intended to protect the privacy of children using the Internet. As of April 21, 2000, many Web sites are required to obtain parental consent before collecting, using, or disclosing personal information from children under the age of thirteen. See COPPA News Release and Full Text of Federal Register Notice at http://www.ftc.gov/os/1999/10/64fr59888.htm

DISCLAMER:Creative-Poems.com reserves the right to remove any account, poem, or comment at any time with or without notice or explanation. The terms of this service agreement may change at any time with or without notice solely at the discretion of the operators.
Creative-Poems.com disclaims any and all responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, material, behavior, completeness, legality, reliability, operability, or availability of information or material displayed on this site, even if Creative-Poems.com or its authorized representative has been advised of the possibility of such damages. Creative-Poems.com disclaims any responsibility for any harm resulting from downloading or accessing any information or material on Creative-Poems.com.
You comprehend and agree that your use of Creative-Poems.com and any services or content provided (the service) is made available and provided to you at your own risk. It is provided to you AS IS and we expressly disclaim all warranties of any kind, implied or expressed, including but not limited to the warranties of fitness for a particular purpose, merchantability, and non-infringement.
We make no warranty, implied or expressed, that any part of the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, virus-free, timely, secure, accurate, reliable, of any quality, that any content is safe in any shape, for, or manner for download. You comprehend and agree that neither Creative-Poems.com, nor any participant in the service provides professional advice of any kind and that use of such advice or any other information is solely at your own risk and without Creative-Poems.com liability of any kind.

INDEMNITY:You agree to indemnify and hold Creative-Poems.com, affiliates, officers, agents, co-branders or other partners, and employees, harmless from any claim or demand, including reasonable attorneys' fees, made by any third party due to or arising out of content you submit, post, transmit or make available through this website, your use of this website, your connection to the website, your violation of the Terms Of Service, or your violation of any rights of another.

CHOICE OF LAW AND FORUM:The Terms Of Service and the relationship between you and Creative-Poems.com shall be governed by the laws of the State of Florida without regard to its conflict of law provisions. You and Creative-Poems.com agree to submit to the personal and exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located within the county of Duval, Florida.

WAIVER AND SEVERABILITY OF TERMS:The failure of Creative-Poems.com to exercise or enforce any right or provision of the Terms Of Service shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. If any provision of the Terms Of Service is found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavor to give effect to the parties' intentions as reflected in the provision, and the other provisions of the Terms Of Service remain in full force and effect.

STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS:You agree that regardless of any statute or law to the contrary, any claim or cause of action arising out of or related to use of this website or the Terms Of Service must be filed within one (1) year after such claim or cause of action arose or be forever barred.
The section titles in the Terms Of Service are for your convenience only and have no legal or contractual effect.